“Tosen.”
“Tosen, is not a principal. He is not the type to be, neither he nor Bacon, whose name also I do not know. He was the man who was searching the safe. What we want to know is: Who gives them their orders?”
“He will not talk,” said the Chief gloomily. “Except for saying that they were looking for money, he answers only, ‘I do not know,’ or ‘Nobody’ to all questions.”
“What have you charged him with?”
“Armed robbery. Safebreaking. Menaces,” said the Chief rather helplessly. “He does not seem to mind.”
“It follows, then, that he is more afraid of what someone else will do to him than he is of a term of imprisonment,” suggested Hambledon.
“It would seem so. Particularly as, in fact, nothing was stolen and technically a safe is not ‘broken’ if it is opened with its key. He can be charged with ‘attempting’ this and that, but all he actually did was to terrify the night porter.”
“Charge him with something more serious, then.”
“What? There is nothing against him previously.”
Hambledon thought for a moment.
“Charge him with the murder of Lentov in my bedroom, then. A murder charge will make most people talk.”
“But there is no shadow of a—wait a minute. There were fingerprints in your room. Two men’s prints.”
“So there were. If the charge produces any results, you can compare those prints with his, can you not?”
“If we compare them first and they are his, we should have something definite to back the charge.”
“Certainly. But if you compare them first and they are not his, your accusation will, I feel, lack that fire and energy which are so convincing. Charges can always be withdrawn.”
A slow smile spread across the German’s face.
“It is plainly to be seen,” he said, “that the Herr is not a policeman.” He touched a bell upon his desk, when a constable answered it he was told to bring in the prisoner Tosen.
13: The Man in the Dressing Gown
The Chief of the Goslar police, a square and solid man, sat behind his big desk; Hambledon sat in a chair at one end of it; at a small table in the corner a shorthand clerk waited with pencil at the ready. Tosen was brought in and set before them.
“Tosen,” began the Chief, “since you were before me earlier this morning, further evidence has come in.”
Tosen’s gaze was fixed on the carpet at his feet. His eyelids flickered but his expression did not change.
“Interesting,” said the Chief, observing this. He looked at Hambledon. “The Herr agrees with me?”
Tommy realized that he was supposed to ask what was particularly interesting, and did so.
“The prisoner’s reaction,” explained the Chief. “If a man who knows himself to be innocent is told that further evidence has become available his face lights up, his shoulders are thrown back, his chin rises. Hope nerves his sinews and uplifts his heart—no?”
“Not on this occasion, it would seem.”
“No. The guilty prisoner knows only too well that further evidence can only tell against him.”
The Chief of Police paused for this remark to sink in.
“Tosen. You are now charged with the murder of a Russian named Andrey Lentov in Room 32 of——”
Tosen leapt as though he had been jabbed with a pin.
“I did not! I am not guilty, I tell you, I was not even carrying a gun that day, I——”
“Carrying a gun,” repeated the Chief of Police thoughtfully. “Who told you that Lentov was shot?”
“Who told you I shot him?” demanded Tosen, turning at bay.
“Who could tell us?”
“Any liar who wanted to cover himself! It was all over Goslar that a man had been shot at the Drei Bullochsen and that he was a Russian. I don’t believe anybody told you I shot him. You are trying to pin it on me because you can’t find out who did it! It is only,” babbled Tosen, who, once his silence had been broken, was like a cask of Hanover beer with the bung knocked out, “because I was caught there with a gun tonight that you conclude I was the man there with a gun ten days ago! It’s ridiculous. I’ve never carried a gun before except in war against the enemies of my country,” said Tosen magnificently, “and I’ve never been inside the Drei Bullochsen in my life before tonight. I swear it.”
At this point the Inspector who had arrested Tosen stepped forward and laid a slip of paper on the desk before his chief, who glanced at it and then at Hambledon.
“Now I come to think back,” went on Tosen, “on that day I was not in Goslar at all. I was in Hanover, spending a couple of days with an old comrade I had not seen since the Battle of the Reichswald at the end of the war. He and I——”
He met the eye of the Chief of Police, who was looking so amused that Tosen’s voice faltered and came to a stop.
“That must have been most gratifying,” said the Chief. “We must have his name and address, must we not? I should like to ask him how you managed to get along without your fingers.”
“My——”
“Fingers. The things you leave prints with. How dare you tell these fairy tales to me? Your fingerprints were in Room 32 of the Drei Bullochsen when we found Lentov dead.”
Tosen staggered and one of the police escort kindly supported him.
“So you see,” added the Chief, “our informant was speaking the truth after all. Wasn’t he?”
Tosen jumped, as it was hoped that he would, to the natural conclusion that Dittmar was also in custody and had been talking.
“That swine Dittmar,” he raved, “the biggest liar the devil ever made. He’d sell his mother for two marks. It was he who shot Lentov, not I. I wasn’t even armed, I told you that. We ought to have made some excuse about the wrong room and got out. Kirsch said——” he stopped abruptly.
“Kirsch! Who is he?”
“Nobody. I don’t know.”
“But you said——”
“I was going to say that Dittmar had been drinking, that’s all. Kirsch is a drink, you know. Dittmar always drinks kirsch.”
“Then why did you stop suddenly?”
“Because I did not think you would be interested in what Dittmar drinks.”
“You are lying,” said the Chief contemptuously. “Your words were ‘Kirsch said.’ Listen, Tosen. You are involved up to the neck in the murder of Lentov and I mean your neck. Do you really want to hang for it while the man who sent you there goes free? Because you will.”
Tosen hesitated.
“Can I have a cigarette?”
“No.”
“Can I have a drink, then, please?”
“Give him a glass of water.”
The water was brought and Tosen drank thirstily.
“Danke,” he said, and put down the glass. “If I tell you all I know, will you swear to send me back to the Rhineland and tell no one—no one at all—where I have gone?”
“You are proposing to bargain with us,” said the Chief, in a menacing voice.
“Yes, mein Herr, please. The Herr will understand that if I tell all I know it will save the Herr a great deal of trouble, whereas if I do not talk I shall only be imprisoned or hanged and both are preferable to what I have already been promised if I should fail—as I did.”
“Fail to get the papers, you mean,” said Hambledon, speaking for the first time.
“That is so, mein Herr,” said Tosen, looking at him with plain curiosity. “May I apologise now for having thrown the Herr into the lake?”
“No need,” said Hambledon, lighting a cigarette. “You didn’t.”
Tosen blinked. The Chief of Police said that they were straying from the subject and Hambledon apologised.
“Go on,” said the Chief to Tosen.
“I am a Rhinelander, mein Herr, and the Rhine is a pleasantly long way from the Soviet Zone. Even if I am in prison——”
“You will be.”
“—so long as it is in
the Rhineland I shall be safe, not here, where one may be abducted into the Soviet Zone and——” Tosen shuddered.
“Was that what you were promised as a reward for failure?”
Tosen nodded.
“You are a scoundrel,” said the Chief thoughtfully. “You are a traitor, which is worse. You are probably a murderer too.” Tosen shook his head violently. “You are also a fool for putting a weapon into my hand. If you do not tell all you know, I myself will have you put across the frontier.”
He paused a moment and then continued:
“But if you tell me frankly and fully all you know, I will do my best for you, since, although you are a man of no importance whatever, it is in your power to save us some time and trouble. Understand this,” he went on, as Tosen tried to thank him, “if it is proved that you murdered Lentov you will hang like anybody else.”
“I did not murder Lentov,” said Tosen steadily. “Here is the truth, then. My employer is Ludwig Kirsch.” Tosen added particulars of Kirsch’s address and ostensible occupation. “He comes from Hamburg and has been a Communist for years. He ran a Communist cell there and taught in a school. He has a violent temper and was dismissed for half killing a boy who angered him. So he came here and organises the Soviet espionage and—and other activities for them here. He——”
“Just a moment,” said the Chief. He wrote a message upon a slip of paper and handed it to the Inspector, who immediately left the room. “Now, go on.”
Tosen talked, incidentally clearing up a number of small mysteries which had been puzzling the police, and went on: “When the Smirnov Plan papers were stolen from General Vedovitch, it was not known whether Lentov had them or the Englander Michel—Machel——”
“I know whom you mean. Go on.”
“Or even if they were in it together. They both disappeared and there was no trace of where they had gone, it was thought likely that the Englander at least had slipped back over the frontier to Goslar. Kirsch ordered Dittmar and me to find out if he had returned to Goslar but there seemed to be no news of him. Then we were ordered to search his room at the Drei Bullochsen. We got in without being observed, choosing our time, there was no one in the room but it was occupied, clothes and things in the room. So, we were searching when there was a step outside and the door handle turned. Dittmar was behind the door when it opened. I went down behind the bed, on the floor. Somebody came in—I could not see who—and cried out something and there was a shot and someone fell. Dittmar spoke to me and I got up. There was a man dead on the floor. He wore English clothes and the passport in his pocket was the English one of Michel—that Englander.” Tosen picked up the glass and drank the rest of the water.
“Go on.”
“Dittmar said: ‘This is good, this is that Englander who stole the papers. It may be that he has them on him.’ So we searched his pockets and found not the Smirnov Plan papers but the identity papers of Andrey Lentov, Under-Commissar for Civil Administration of Occupied Territories. So then, mein Herr, we did not know which man had been shot.”
“Very awkward,” said the Chief of Police. “Go on.”
“I said, ‘It is the Englander, look at the clothes,’ but Dittmar said, ‘It is the Russian, look at the photographs.’ So we propped him up in the armchair, mein Herr, out of respect, took his Russian identity papers and his gun, and came away. Kirsch was very angry with us for having shot Lentov, but Dittmar said that Lentov had drawn his gun and were we to stand there and let ourselves be shot? But Dittmar said that I had shot the man, not he.”
“I see. Now tell me about Dittmar.”
Tosen embarked willingly upon a picturesque survey of Dittmar’s personal character, morals, habits, and tastes, but the Chief of Police stopped him.
“No, no. We will take all that as read. Do you know anything about his history, where he was born, what he is by trade, where he has lived, that sort of thing?”
If one could believe a single word that Dittmar said, it appeared that he had been born and brought up at Glogau on the Oder, that he was trained as an engineer and worked in a factory at Frankfurt-am-Oder until the war, when he went into the Army and served on the Western Front and in North Africa; “that is how he knows French,” explained Tosen. After the war he had worked in Hamburg and it was there that he met Kirsch in the Communist organisation. “But his home is in the Soviet Zone and he still keeps in touch with his people there.”
Tosen was removed to a cell and the Chief of Police turned to Hambledon and was about to speak when another note was brought in.
“Kirsch,” said the Chief. “He was arrested and brought here, just like that. He has not spoken since he was arrested. My friend, you provided a key to unlock the tongue of Tosen; have you any suggestion as to how we may induce confidences from Kirsch?”
Hambledon said that he was sorry he had not, never having heard of the man until half an hour earlier. “But some help might be obtained from a study of his private papers,” he added. “What accommodation did he have, a couple of rooms in a house?”
“A house all to himself with a small room kept locked. It has cupboards, locked, and a desk, locked, a safe and numerous drawers, all locked. Sounds interesting, does it not?”
“You make my mouth water. If I were a spaniel I should be dribbling visibly. Kirsch must have a bunch of keys the size of a prison warder’s.”
“Herr Hambledon, this part of Germany is in the British Zone of Occupation and this is a Security matter. You will wish to go through Kirsch’s papers yourself and I will postpone his examination until you are able to be present.”
“You are more than correct, you are generous,” said Hambledon gratefully, for, though what the Chief had said was quite true, it is much pleasanter to be offered facilities than to have to insist on them. “I am very much obliged to you and I will go there at once if you will kindly give orders for me to be admitted.”
“Certainly. And, thank you. In return,” said the German, with a laugh, “do you feel that you could satisfy a curiosity which is burning me to the point of pain? Where are those famous Smirnov Plans now, in your pocket?”
“Oh, no. They are in that bank in Fischmaker Strasse, the Norddeutsche Bank is it? I dropped them into the night safe last night, addressed to myself. There was also with the Smirnov Plan a covering note addressed to me by name, rather odd, it was written in English in German script—unsigned. I have no means of knowing whether Micklejohn wrote it or not. I should say it was written by a German but it is in idiomatic English and ends by telling me to look out for trouble. How right he was. Now tell me, Herr Chief of Police, have you yet sent up your detectives to search that house?”
“Not yet. My police are there but I have not yet given the other order.”
“May I suggest that it might be as well to withhold your detectives for the moment? If you will agree, I should like to spend two or three days there on the chance that someone may come or the telephone may ring. I am not really interested in the Smirnov Plan for its own sake, though now it is in my possession I shall be happy to send it on to those interested and if the Russians are running round in small circles tearing each other’s hair over it I am filled with fiendish delight. But Micklejohn is my job, not the Smirnov Plan, and I am only interested in it to the limited extent that Micklejohn seems to have come across it somewhere. However, one can’t miss possible chances. By the way, did Kirsch have any domestic staff or did he wash up and make his own bed?”
The Chief of Police looked at the Inspector, who had returned after arresting Kirsch.
“He had a woman in by the day, mein Herr, the wife of a man on the railway, but she has been called away to keep house for a married daughter at Hameln who has just been confined.”
“Are you sure she did not provide a substitute?” said Hambledon. “I don’t want someone letting themselves in with the back door key at seven tomorrow morning and sending for the police because there’s the wrong man in the house.”
“There wa
s another woman. She came to the house just after Kirsch had gone. I told her that the Herr had gone away unexpectedly and that I was waiting for her to ask her for the key, I have it here. I said that the Herr would let her know when he was coming back.” The Inspector smiled. “She said that she did not mind how long it was before the Herr came back, so I do not think she will give any trouble.”
“It almost sounds as though she did not like him.”
“It appears, mein Herr, that the Herr Kirsch looked at her over his glasses, and——”
“No one could possibly like that.”
“No, indeed, mein Herr. And that he went about the house unshaven and in a dressing gown all day. She said it was not respectable.”
The Chief laughed, but Hambledon asked interestedly whether Kirsch had any other peculiarities.
“Only a tendency to draw the blinds at the earliest possible moment. He said it was an invasion of privacy if people could look in at him.”
“I rather sympathise,” said Hambledon. “By the way, may I use your telephone to ring my department in London?”
The message was to tell his department that young Micklejohn was alive and well and being sheltered by sympathisers in the Soviet Zone.
14: Do Not Forget Us
“I will drive you out there myself,” said the Chief of Police, “and you shall tell me what you want my police to do. No, it is no trouble, indeed, I have to go to Oker about something.”
“What I should really like the police to do is to keep watch on the house but keep out of sight. I should like them to notice anyone who comes to the house and to follow him when he leaves. Not to arrest him but to find out where he goes.”
“You shall hear me give the orders.”
Goslar, like most ancient towns which once were walled, has its houses closely packed within the old perimeter; outside it the houses are immediately more widely spaced. Kirsch’s house stood alone in a garden. A drive came up to the front door and past it to a garage containing his car. A lane between hedges ran down the side of the garden to cross a stream called simply Die Abzucht and so on towards the railway.
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